


The Lucifer Project

by Morningstarofnight



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Dubious Morality, Gen, Human Experimentation, Immortality, Morally Ambiguous Character, Revenge, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Steampunk, Unethical Experimentation, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:31:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningstarofnight/pseuds/Morningstarofnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Banks has earned a job at a respectable research facility, but the abandoned remnants of a disaster lie hidden in its heart. She was expecting to find some dusty but exciting illegal technology. Laura’s investigation uncovers a burning wrath, barely contained and put into a state of slumber by the facility years before. And now he’s woken up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lucifer Project

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this work comes from my characterization of Lucifer Morningstar. This is his steampunk AU. Another self-indulgent story I'll be updating in my spare time. General warning for transphobia throughout the work thanks to pseudo-Victorian-era gender roles.

_“Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word ‘Arise!’ within my ear.”_

-Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Premature Burial’ 

A small dial attached to the coffin clicked, the needle vibrating gently. A tall, muscular woman watched the display, then made a small note on her clipboard.

                _It’s humming again_.

The room was empty except for the woman and the coffin and its associated machinery. Since she began her side project here, she had uncovered piles of old paperwork and technology at least thirty years out of date. It was hard to tell these days, with the odd stylistic mixtures of old and new, but the layers of dust on everything told the woman that nobody had touched this room for a while now. The papers crinkled at her touch. The dials, given a few cranks and the occasional whack from her toolkit, started up with a groaning of gears. And the coffin had begun to hum. 

Laura returned to her actual work, sorting through and filing papers in an old cabinet. She had dragged the wooden drawer set into the coffin room so she could keep an eye on both. Her principles told her she needed to put the cabinet back before someone noticed, but then her eyes caught on the sheets of cobwebs and metal rusted through from disuse and age, and so the cabinet stayed. 

“Session minutes from years 604-610, drawer three…” Laura muttered to herself as she flipped through a heavy stack of bound papers. She glanced at the final pages telling her the committee name and department, then at the coffin. “Hydraulics and Botany share a committee. Should it go in drawer five, do you think?” 

The coffin answered as it had always done, with the gentle hiss of pressurized steam and clicking of gears, the sound that had alerted her to the room in the first place. The mechanism of pipes was the only thing working at first, and it sealed the lid of the coffin shut. Laura could find no indication on any paper of what was inside. 

                _“Do you know anything about what we have down in the old vaults?”_

_Alexan looked at her, their face puzzled. “What, you mean the papers you’ve been filing?”_

_“No,” Laura looked around, over her shoulder. “I mean…is there any old history of the facility that survived the fire thirty years ago?”_

_“Not that I know of,” Alexan said slowly. “Why? Did you find something?”_

_Laura hesitated. “Just…some old machinery, is all. Broken, mostly.”_

_And something that scared her more than she wanted to admit._  

The coffin’s initial shock had worn off, but Laura still didn’t know if she talked to it to reassure herself that it couldn’t really respond, or because the little humming needle on the dial _was_ a response. 

The stack of papers in her arms dwindled to nothing, and she got to her feet, hands smoothing down the fabric of her trousers. She climbed the stairs, the dust gradually becoming less and less apparent on the twisted metal railings until the black-painted iron gleamed fresh and polished. Alexan worked at the front desk of the facility, their unassuming clothing and relaxed posture designed to fluster any potential visitors trying to stick their nose where it didn’t belong. 

“Laur—” they began in greeting, but cut off quickly when the front door swung open and a loud, brusque man with a heavy step and thick, combed brown hair marched in. 

“Lawrence!” the man barked. 

Laura shot Alexan a brief glance, and they gave her a grimace in return. She carefully plastered a false smile over her face and stepped into view of the loud man. “Right here, father,” she said, and prepared to tune out the rest of the conversation. 

The man clapped a hand hard on her shoulder. “Right, your mother keeps insisting you come to dinner at least once a week, and I’m not taking no for an answer this time. Six o’clock, sharp and punctual, you know she hates it when you’re late, son. And for Fellunssake, wash that ink off your fingers, it’s bad enough you chose a woman’s profession but there’s no need to flaunt that kind of behavior. People will talk.” 

Laura stifled a yawn. “Yes, father, I’ll be there at six o’clock this time for sure. Goodbye, father.” She gently turned the man around and gave him almost a shove out the door. 

“Good riddance,” Alexan snorted once the building was closed again. 

Laura made a noise of agreement. “He’s old and annoying, but he’s harmless. I’ve never told him _why_ I applied to work here, and so long as you’re here I doubt he’ll find out.” 

Alexan smiled at that. “Yes, well, he can’t figure me out, and unless he happens to see you he tends to leave within the minute.” 

Laura groaned. “He’s that regular?” 

“Regrettably.” 

“Pardon my never leaving the vaults again.” Laura rummaged in a drawer behind Alexan’s desk to find the next chunk of papers in need of rehoming. 

“I’ll have meals sent down at decent times, my lady,” Alexan commented. A small corner of their mouth tilted upwards. 

Laura waved the papers in the air and descended out of view.

* * *

“Father’s not a _bad_ man, exactly, he’s just…” Laura trailed off. She was alone, in the dusty darkness several floors below the surface, talking to a coffin, and the realization had just set in. 

She shook her head and tried to ignore the sudden sense of dread trickling down her spine. Indeed, she addressed her words to a coffin. But she was getting more and more bothered by the fact that she had no idea what adjective to apply before it: _empty_ or _occupied_? 

Laura dropped the papers and ran over to the coffin and its mechanism. Apart from the dial—still vibrating gently and recording the odd humming tone on a scratchy readout sheet—apart from the system of steam-pressure pipes and clockwork wrapped around the edge of the lid, there was a little bell. The kind folks used to put on coffins out of fear of being buried alive. The practice had started to die out, but Laura recognized the idea. It suggested that there _was_ someone or something inside the coffin. 

She dug through all of the notes she could find on the coffin and every piece of technology in the room. 

“How to set up automated steam pressure system…how to connect reader to monitor dial…” Laura flipped through page after page, until finally something caught her eye that she had dismissed as unrelated at first. “Body system functioning after extended lengths of time, prevention of age decay on the body, maintaining untiring brain activity in a controlled environment…” 

She sat down on a stool, which complained loudly at the sudden assault of its structure for the first time in decades. “This is a load of superstitious junk.” 

She knew the Weatherbroke Facility had gone through rough times in the past, likely attracting the sorts of charlatan scientists famous throughout the city of Filreot, but seeing the proof in person was…disappointing. 

Laura rested the old papers on the top of the coffin, unsure what to do now that she had gone through all of them. People would always be obsessed with returning the dead to life. The coffin no longer scared her. It just seemed sad, lonely, holding the long-forgotten remains of a scientist or a poet or their loved one. All of the machinery set up, ready to take notes and open up the lid for the first breath taken in a second life. 

                _“What can you tell me about what started the fire?”_

_Alexan gave her a strange look. “No one really knows. Some mad arsonist, according to police reports. They never gave his name.”_

_Laura thought about the coffin lurking in the disused room. “Why would they have wanted to burn down a scientific research facility? Superstition?”_

_“There were notably some issues taken with the scientists’ experiments.” Alexan flipped through a journaled new history of the facility for her, their finger pausing over a certain entry. “The arsonist claimed there was illegal experimentation going on, but the accusations were dismissed after a thorough investigation. Just some poor down-on-their-lucks trying to make grandiose claims of scientific power, I imagine.”_

 Laura stared at the files in her hands, unable to read the words clearly despite the lantern she’d brought with her. The conversation she’d shared with Alexan upon her discovery of the old room played over and over in her mind. Everything she’d found seemed to fit the understanding that some amateur scientists had been trying to find that magical key to life and death, so why couldn’t she just move on and completely ignore the contraption behind her, leave it to be forgotten again amidst the dust and the spiders?

* * *

The time on her pocket watch read half four. Little time remained before she would be forced to go home and have a lovely evening meal with her parents, if she wanted to be punctual. 

Because that is the kind of situation that attracts misfortune and surprise in conspiracy together, half four is when everything started happening. 

It began with a quiet _ding_ , startling Laura so badly that she hit her elbow on the drawer set and scattered papers everywhere. She whirled around when the sound happened again, and froze. The little bell attached to the coffin jerked slightly, coming to a rest. A pause, and the bell rang again. 

And again. 

The pipes hissed louder, the gears around the edge of the coffin lid suddenly turning faster and faster in time with the rush of steam to the area. The needle of the dial attached to it flipped around violently, and on the nearby table the readout machine scratched furiously, and over and on top of it all, the ringing of the bell. 

Laura grabbed the paper from the readout, staring at the excited swathes of motion transcribed by the needle. Uncomprehending, she ran upstairs, shouting at Alexan before she was even in sight of their desk. 

“Laura? What is it? What’s wrong?” they cried, and by way of answer Laura pushed the piece of paper into their hands. 

“Can you translate what that says into a written language?” 

Alexan’s brow furrowed, and they stared at the paper. “I…yes. This came from a machine down there, you said?” When Laura nodded, they continued, “That shouldn’t be possible. Machines spit out information in their own tongue, never one that can copy so easily to that of humans. But this…this is a human’s sentence written in the manner of a machine. If I translate the larger spikes using Fulman’s Shifting Alphabet…” They flattened the paper on their desk and grabbed a pen, making notes as they went. 

Impatiently, Laura waited for Alexan to finish. The sentence wasn’t particularly long, but it made Alexan drop their pen and take a step away from the piece of paper as if it contained a lethal illness. 

                _“Well, I lied. There was_ one _incident with illegal experimentation that affected all of Filreot, but I can’t imagine any of Weatherbroke’s scientists were involved. The press loved the attention it got, started giving it a name straight from one of those old pagan religions.”_

_Laura smiled. “You’re showing your age, old hat,” she teased._

_Alexan tucked a strand of gray hair behind their ear. “Hush. This old hat controls your salary.”_

_“What did they call the incident?” she asked, returning to the subject at hand. Alexan was quiet for a long moment, until she thought she’d have to repeat her question._

_“They called it the Lucifer Project.” Something in their tone made her further questions fade. Laura shuddered, glad that whatever thoughts haunted Alexan, they firmly believed the incident lay far from Weatherbroke’s doorstep._  

 “Alexan?” 

Wordlessly, they handed Laura the piece of paper, annotated with some scratched-out notes from working through the translation and a single complete sentence so full of fury that it made the cold chill return instantly to Laura’s spine. The coffin frightened her again. 

 _LET ME OUT_.


End file.
